The world is democratising and Nigeria finally joined the league of other democratic nations 16 years ago after our previous attempts collapsed like a pack of cards. Under a despot who died with his boots on, we saw the ghosts of late dictators hovering over Nigeria like Ismail Enver Pasha, leader of the Ottoman Empire during the Balkan Wars and World War I, North Korea’s Kim II-Sung's dictatorial leader who led the country in a dreadful direction.

“Have you congratulated our new Ministers?” “I am still thinking about it, actually. I don’t know whether to congratulate them or to commiserate or to pity some of them. They have merged Ministries that need not be merged. Some Perm Secs are now floating. Six months and this is it?” “What kind of talk is that? You have come again oh”. “I wonder too. At least you can see that round pegs have been put in round holes, and shame on all you doubting Thomases, our government is good to go.”

On May 29, 2015, there was a change of government in Nigeria. That day at Eagle Square, Abuja Nigeria's capital the world witnessed a peaceful handover of power by the iconic former President Jonathan who saved our beloved country from degenerating into another Syria.

I have tried delaying the writing of this piece in the honest expectation that someone probably misquoted Chief E.K. Clark, when he reportedly publicly disowned former President Goodluck Jonathan. I had hoped that our dear father, E.K. Clark, would issue a counter statement and say the usual things politicians say: “they quoted me out of context!” “Jonathan is my son”. That has not happened; rather, some other Ijaw voices, including one Joseph Evah, have come to the defence of the old man, to join hands in rubbishing a man they once defended to the hilt and used as a bargaining chip for the Ijaw interest in the larger Nigerian geo-politics.

There has been an influx of refugees and migrants across the Old World to western Europe partly from crisis-ridden regions of the Dark Continent. The ongoing crisis from war-torn Syria compounded the problem as Europe unavoidably has to open its doors to fleeing Syrians from the bloodshed that has engulfed the embattled country under President Assad.